Organization for the Timeline of Life - History Fair

Students are working during the month of February to create their backboards for our Timeline of Life / History Fair, coming up on Thursday!

Note: Previous activities done in December to kick off the Timeline of Life:

The Stuff of Stars by Marion Dane Bauer

Timeline of Life calendars

Here's how we are organizing all of our February research & prep time:

Week One

Mon

How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World by Faith McNulty

Frans Lanting TED talk




Tue


read from The Story of Life by Katie Scott and supplement with Prehistoric Actual Size and Apex Predators by Steve Jenkins


Gallery 1: Precambrian Time (4.6 BYA - 541 MYA)
Actual Size - protozoa


Gallery 2: Paleozoic Era - 6 Periods

Cambrian Period (541 MYA - 485 MYA)
Apex Predators - Anomalocaris

Ordovician Period (485 MYA - 444 MYA)

Silurian (444 MYA - 419 MYA)
Actual Size - sea scorpion
Apex Predators - Trigonotarbid

Devonian (419 MYA - 359 MYA)
Actual Size - spiny shark
Apex Predators - sea scorpion, Dunkleosteus

Carboniferous (359 MYA - 299 MYA)
Actual Size - Diplocaulus, dragonfly, cockroach, millipede

Permian (299 MYA - 252 MYA)
Apex Predators - Dimetrodon, Mastodonsaurus




Wed

read from The Story of Life by Katie Scott and supplement with Prehistoric Actual Size and Apex Predators by Steve Jenkins


Gallery 3: Mesozoic Era - 3 Periods

Triassic Period (252 MYA - 200 MYA)
Actual Size - Dinocephalosaurus, Saltopus

Jurassic Period (200 MYA - 145 MYA)
Actual Size - Morganucodon

Cretaceous Period (145 MYA - 65 MYA)
Actual Size - Velociraptor, Dsungaripterus, Baryonyx, Giganotosaurus, Protoceratops
Apex Predators - Utahraptor, Spinosaurus, Tylosaurus, Hatzegopteryx




Thu

read from The Story of Life by Katie Scott and supplement with Prehistoric Actual Size and Apex Predators by Steve Jenkins


Gallery 4: Cenozoic Era - 3 Periods

Paleogene (65 MYA - 23 MYA)
Actual Size - Leptictidium
Apex Predators - Titanoboa

Neogene (23 MYA - 2.58 MYA)
Actual Size - terror bird, Epigaulus
Apex Predators - Daedon, Teratorn, marsupial saber-tooth, terror bird

Quaternary (2.58 MYA to present)
Apex Predators - giant short-faced bear


students turn in report requests (first, second & third choice)

Week Two

Mon


start new read aloud story, The Monster Shark's Tooth: Canoeing from the Chesapeake Bay into the Ancient Miocene Sea by Peter Vogt

remind children that the formation of the Earth happened approximately 4.6 BYA

practice reading big numbers by playing the Dice Game to the billions place (10 lines)



explain decimal terms such as 4.6 BYA and 2.58 MYA

announce which time period each child will research

explain how the Timeline of Life Museum will be set up in the house

pass out Montessori books for each time period (FREE PDF of the Cretaceous Period book) and let children begin to take notes

organize hanging files with a file folder for each Geologic Period




Tue

read They Turned to Stone by Julian May

continued research (look through my larger collection of Timeline of Life books, find your time period, write notes, include book title and page number, mark the books you'd like in your display)




Wed

field trip to Parkinson Laboratory at SIU to take further notes and look at how they set up their displays

read Grandmother Fish by Jonathan Tweet and look at the Tree of Life illustration in the front, imagine how big it would be if it included all the failed designs (animals / plants / fungi which are now extinct)




Thu

look through my fossils to see what I have for each time period

have one-on-one meetings with each child to hear their thoughts about how they'd like to set up their backboards (one section each for Geology, Zoology, Botany)

Week Three

Tue



I'll update my notes for our final week as we go through it!

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Grade Five Main Lesson Blocks

I'm really excited to share my planning for next school year! For 2026-2027, we will do the classic Waldorf Fifth Grade blocks. This includes

Sep - Orienteering

Oct - Botany I

Nov - Ancient India, Persia, Mesopotamia

Dec - Fractions

Jan - U.S. Geography

Feb - Ancient Egypt

Mar - Decimals

Apr - Botany II

May - Greek Mythology

Our Botany focus will be on Foraging for herbal medicines and wild edible plants. I think that this will make plant identification much more interesting!

I will continue to offer Friendly Letters as a Special subject. Because of the U.S. Geography focus, this is the perfect year for children to have a pen pal.

I'd also like to do a field trip series where we visit Local Artists. The children will really enjoy seeing their studio spaces and hearing about their process!

If you know about our school year flow, you'll know that this means that the Class Play theme will be Fractions (that will be so fun for the children to write!) and the History Fair will be Ancient Egypt. Our final collaborative tapestry will be Greek Mythology. The topic will be the story of Persephone.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Grade Four Main Lesson Blocks

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade Four Main Lesson Blocks

Sep - Landforms & Water Features

Oct - Zoology I

Nov - Norse Mythology

Dec - Class Play - Norse Mythology

Jan - Local Geography, History & Industry

Feb - Timeline of Life (1st & 2nd G.L.)

Mar - Fractions

Apr - Personal Narratives

May - Zoology II

Jun - Tall Tales

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

Fourth Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
3 spaces already taken

Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Parts I & II)

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade Three is a special situation. As with a lot of parents, I felt pressure to start my child in Grade One at the age of 6. However, in Waldorf education, Grade One is begun when a child is 7. The Grade Three curriculum is then specifically designed to meet the developmental needs of children who are 9, which is a milestone called the Nine-Year Change. So what to do?

What I did is that I slowed down the Grade Three curriculum and we spent two years on Grade Three blocks. This actually works out perfectly for Grade Three, since this year is all about hands-on life skills. It's really nice to have enough time for a project like a Three Sisters Garden or a Cob Bread Oven!

Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Year I)

Sep - Cordage

Oct - Clocks & Calendars

Nov - Shelters

Dec - Class Play - Legends of Mongolia

Jan - Story of Written Language (4th G.L.)

Feb - Early Humans (3rd G.L)

Mar - Currency

Apr - Gardening (Three Sisters Garden)

May - Baking (Cob Bread Oven)

Jun - Stories of Household Items

For Science Club that year, we did Building projects and participated in the Great Carbondale Pumpkin Race and the Great Cardboard Boat Regatta!

Grade Three Main Lesson Blocks (Year II)

Sep - Fibers & Clothing

Oct - Stories of Creation

Nov - Grammar

Dec - Class Play - Grammar's Garden

Jan - Old Testament Stories II

Feb - Foods of the World I

Mar - Planting a Dye Garden (Cotton, Flax, Indigo)

Apr - Old Testament Stories III

May - Building a Tree Squirrel Playground

Jun - Foods of the World II

The Science Club theme was Spy Science & Magic Tricks! We also visited a small local farm each month, which I prefer over a traditional Farming block.

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

Third Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
8 spaces already taken

Grade Two Main Lesson Blocks

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade Two Main Lesson Blocks

Sep - Lowercase Letters (Chancery Script)

Oct - Famous Inventors

Nov - Column Algorithms (Place Value)

Dec - Class Play - Aesop's Fables & Puppetry

Jan - Jataka Tales

Feb - Shapes & Number Patterns

Mar - Word Families (SWI)

Apr - Native American Legends

May - Stories of the Saints

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

Second Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
7 spaces already taken

Grade One Main Lesson Blocks

Given that I have the freedom to combine elements of Montessori and Waldorf education, a lot of people have asked me what main lesson blocks I chose for each grade level. Here is what we've done over the past 5 years.

Grade One Main Lesson Blocks

Aug & Sep - Form Drawing

Oct - Quality of Numbers

Nov - Capital Letters I

Dec - Festivals

Saint Nicholas Day
Santa Lucia Day
Winter Solstice

Jan - Capital Letters II

Feb - 4 Seasons

Mar - 4 Operations (Math Gnomes)

Apr - 12 Archetypal Professions

May - 4 Elements

If you're lesson planning, don't forget that I have Ruzuku courses for many of these main lesson blocks (linked above) PLUS an Immersive Experience which contains all of my notes for the year (and you can ask me questions) here:

First Grade Immersive Experience
$375.00

cohort limited to 15 people
14 spaces already taken

Signs of First Grade Readiness (PDF)

Geologic Timeline

In February, our main lesson block topic is the Montessori Second Great Lesson: The Coming of Life. To begin, we first went over the formation and layers of the Earth, and then what was living on the planet during the Precambrian Time and the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Periods.

To help students understand the scale for all of this, we looked back at the 2026 Timeline of Life calendars which we made in December.

On Thursday, the students wrote down their first, second, and third choices for their report topics. Each person will make a backboard for just one of the Geologic Periods. We will be spending the next two weeks on these, and then putting them all in chronological order for the parents to walk through at the History Fair!

Here, if you're not familiar with it, is the terminology for the time periods:

Eon	Era	Period	Epoch	Old Periods
Phanerozoic Eon 541 mya to Present	Cenozoic Era 66 mya to Present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present	Holocene .012 to present	Quaternary 2.58 mya to Present
			Pleistocene 2.58 to .012 mya
		Neogene 23 to2.58 mya	Pliocene 5.3 to 2.58 mya	Tertiary 66 to 2.58 mya
			Miocene 23 to 5.3 mya
		Paleogene 66 to 23 mya	Oligocene 34 to 23 mya
			Eocene 56 to 34 mya
			Paleocene 66 to 56 mya
	Mesozoic Era 252 mya to 66 mya	Cretaceous 145 mya to 66 mya
		Jurassic 201 to 145 mya
		Triassic 252 to 201 mya
	Paleozoic Era 541 to 252 mya	Permian 299 to 252 mya
		Carboniferous 359 to 299 mya
		Devonian 419 to 359 mya
		Silurian 444 to 419 mya
		Ordovician 485 to 444 mya
		Cambrian 541 to 485 mya
Precambrian Time 4,600 to 541 mya		Ediacaran Period 635 to 541 mya
	Proterozoic Era 2,500 to 541 mya
	Archaean 4,000 to 2,500 mya
	Hadean 4,600 to 4,000 mya

The links in the table above are to fossils-facts-and-finds.com, where you can learn about each section of time. The children will be using their books on Geologic Time for their research. There is one per period. Here is a FREE sample in PDF form: The Cretaceous Period. As a Montessori teacher, these books by Doug and Claudia Mann are invaluable! Illustrated by David Cobb.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!

Philosophy: Pleasure vs. Happiness

Last Thursday we had discussion #2 for the Philosophy topic of Happiness (see Here Comes the Sun for discussion #1).

Discussion topic: what is the difference between pleasure and happiness?

I kicked things off by reading We Were Tired of Living in a House by Liesel Moark Skorpen.

Then I put forth this proposal: pleasure is short-term, but happiness is long-term. Each of the places the children tried to live in felt good in the moment -- and each had its little pleasures -- but ultimately they wanted to go back home and live in a house again.

I also explained the difference between a debit card (the cup of chips) vs. a credit card (the empty lid).

With a debit card, you are pulling from something. Money is in the bank.

With a credit card, you have nothing. The lid is empty. You are borrowing money and promising to pay it back. And then the bill comes in the mail!

Shopping feels good in the short term (pleasure) but long-term happiness comes from not having a huge amount of debt hanging over your head.

ALL of the children had seen a credit card, but NONE of them had ever seen a credit card bill. So I printed out a few of my Discover card statements over the years, enough for them to each have two bills to look at. I let them find and circle the following things on the bills, starting with the older one.

date

interest rate

total amount of interest paid year-to-date

credit score

Then I asked them to compare the two bills and let me know their general observations. I explained all about credit score (from 300 to 850... a higher number is better) and interest rate (where a lower number is better).

Then I had everyone go around and read off the New Balance amount.

They realized that the balance had changed very little over the years. I explained that when you have a large balance at a high interest rate, if you make only the minimum payment, most of that payment goes to the interest and it barely knocks down the principal. This is even more true if you continue using the card. Lastly, I drew their attention to this little box:

Imagine how it would feel to still be paying your credit cards at the age of 90! It was a very important lesson for them, and I think it had a big impact.

To me this lesson perfectly summarizes the difference between pleasure and happiness. What do you think?

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!